Even In a Struggling Market, You Can Still Sell Your House

Published On: July 14, 2011

It took two years, but Kerry Tramel and his wife Vy finally sold their four bedroom home in Moore, Oklahoma last December.

In the process, Tramel learned a lot about how to sell—and buy—a house in a devastated real estate market.

"We paid $350,000 for it and that's what we sold if for," says Tramel, who heads a local mattress manufacturer. "I was going to do everything I could not to lose on it."

The two-story house with 3,300 square feet was originally offered at $379,000. Tramel admits he could have sold the home right away if he was willing to take less money.

"I passed up an offer of $350,000 one month after it was listed by the agent," says Tramel, who has two young children. "I thought we might be able to get more, but we didn't."

As the housing market struggles to punch its way out of an economic collapse, selling a home these days might seem like an impossible task. But some houses, like Tramel's, can be sold. It just takes patience, a little luck, and a willingness to lower your price.

Even then, it's not always under your control. A key factor still appears to be that time-worn principle—location.

"It's really based on where foreclosures and falling prices haven't hit too hard," says Mary Cassidy, a real estate agent with Bronxville/Ley Real Estate in Westchester County, New York. "Housing's hurting, but there is activity."

Areas that saw the biggest gains from the housing boom are still the slowest to recover.

"For places like Las Vegas, and Phoenix where foreclosures are still happening, home sales are going to take a long time to recover," says Bob Walters, chief economist at QuickenLoans.com. "Other areas of the U.S. have OK sales, like the middle of the country or the East Coast."

While waiting for a buyer for their house, Tramel says he and Vy became "professional house shoppers" and learned how to be a buyer as well. They saw more than 90 properties.

"We were doing both at the same time, buying and selling," Tramel says.

In the process, Tramel picked up a lot about the local real estate market.

"I noticed we didn't have the runup in homes prices that other areas of the country did and we didn't have a lot of foreclosures," Tramel adds. "Home prices haven't had that far to fall, at least from what I can see."

Eventually, Tramel found a buyer. They were renting out their current home and looking for another place to live.

"They had been looking for a long time and knew it was a buyer's market," Tramel says. "But once they knew my price was at the lowest it was going to be, we negotiated on other items such as what may stay in the house. That's how we worked things out."

That allowed Tramel and his family to find for a new home themselves.

"We found a house just a few miles away in Norman that I really loved and we put in a low bid. We put in another offer but nothing happened."

Tramel used Halloween to break the impasse.

"I purposely took my two boys to the neighborhood for trick-or-treating and I saw the owner on the porch of the house we wanted," Tramel says. "I said, 'I'm trying to buy your house' and he said 'We'd love to sell it to you. Why don't you call and we'll work it out.' So that's what we did. The real estate agents still got their commissions and we got what we wanted."

What Tramel got was a 3,900 square foot house for $475,000 that included a home entertainment theatre. It had been on the market for just two months. Tramel says the owner took a loss but was willing to do that in order to move. After both parties came to an agreement, it was just a matter of closing the deal.

"I put 20 percent down and had to go through requirements for the loan with a local mortgage banker, but it was not really that bad a process," Tramel says. "The people that bought my house got a VA loan without any down payment. Not sure how that will work out, but I intend to stay in my house for a long time. I hate moving."

While Tramel was able to move up in price and space, other sellers are looking for a way to downsize.